5 feet from Ardal O'Hanlon

This is kinda about British things (I know Ardal is Irish - keep cool, I'll explain).  I have now lived in Cardiff for 6 months. The house I live in feels like home, the food I eat seems normal and when it rains I don't complain or become discouraged - I just bring out the umbrella I carry everywhere, everyday.

When I got here there were a whole bunch of terms I was either unfamiliar with or knew but had never used.  So now I can say AJ instead of C-wrench, lighting desk instead of light board, torch in the place of flashlight, prompt book instead of prompt script and various other terms related to my work in theatre (like get in and get out instead of load in and strike).  But as I learned these things so that I could function properly in UK theatres other terms seeped into my everyday speech.  Word like - proper, "he is proper Welsh," calling people lovely - "how are you lovely?" and things like ending my statements with "to be honest" or beginning them with "to be fair."  Those last two at the start I tried to keep them out of my speech but they got in some how.  One term that can be awfully embarrassing if you don't know is "pants," that right, not some strange out of the way word, pants.  If you, as an American, think the word pants is what you mean then the word your after is "trousers," as I said before it's not hard to adapt to these words you just get used to it.  However, if I were to say C-wrench to a UK person I would get a blank expression, if I said light board they would probably guess my meaning - but that's because those words don't have any meaning here - "pants" does, pants means underpants, as in underwear.  So if one forgets and uses the word normally in a sentence, like when describing the Christian school you went to in kindergarten and say "we weren't aloud to wear pants," or perhaps you tell an actor to tuck his shirt into his pants (made more awkward by one of his costumes being just his Captain America "pants"), you get some funny responses.  So I can say lift when I mean elevator, and tabs when I mean drapes (theatrically speaking) and film when I mean movie, but pants is a hidden trap that lies in wait for me.

I don't feel like I'm 6000 miles from my house.  I try to picture the globe, or go on google earth, and see myself as on this island with a great big ocean and a whole Continent between me and Claremont (ei everything I've ever known) and it doesn't process.  In the first couple months I would walk down a street and take a picture because the street was some completely and awesomely not American, I don't notice now - they're just streets.  You may have wondered why I didn't include chips vs fries in the above section, that's because I know they aren't the same thing.  Chips are lovely, I didn't think so six months ago but I do now, I like 'em better than fries (Shock! Horror!). Accents only register if there particularly strong, like a guy starts talking and he is proper Welsh, I love that accent, especially if they're proper Cardiff Welsh (watch some British Torchwood, you'll here it).  The strangest accent to hear is my own.  I run across any middle of the road US accent and I nearly flinch when I hear it, not in a bad way, just in a surprised way.  There are words I no longer use because they sound harsh to my in my accent.  This was slightly tough for my birthday as one of the words I avoid is thirty.  Thirty sounds so harsh, so instead of saying it's five thirty, I say it half five - a perfectly acceptable phrase here.  My accent has gone more beachy Californian as well, slower sometimes and elongating my words.

I realize this gone a bit ramble-y, I tried to keep it in sections but my life isn't in sections so it didn't pan out.  This brings me to Ardal O'Hanlon.  If you do not know Mr. O'Hanlon then I recommend you watch his stand-up on youtube and then take in the first episode of My Hero, he was also in the Doctor Who episode Gridlock, but he was kinda made up as a cat so not the best for identification.  I love Ardal O'Hanlon, not romantically though, My Hero is just the right kind of cheesy superhero thing and he's amazing.  But it's British to like him, most Americans have no clue.  It was goal 2 on my list of things I need to do in the UK - see him live.  Be in the same room with Ardal O'Hanlon.  Oddly, I am more familiar with Eddie Izzard's stand-up and whilst I would gladly see him live, it's not a priority.  So why Ardal?  I think it has to do with him as a person, I've seen him interviewed and I think we could have a great conversation.  I can see us sitting and having a long, satisfying conversation.  However being in the room with him was important because it's so essentially British.  I like a great number of UK products, like the Beatles and Monty Python and Eddie Izzard and Keeping Up Appearances and Doctor Who and things like that.  All the things I've listed are widely known in the US, most people have heard of those, a great number of people have seen them.  If I said I wanted to see John Cleese live most people would know what I was talking about and it would be amazing.  But being 5 feet from Ardal O'Hanlon.  That's British amazing that is.  That is an experience that I can really only share with the people of these two islands.  He made British Ilse political jokes and I got them.  He informed me that Americans are upbeat and jump out of bed, ready for the day - well, you can't win 'em all.  I know I'm not British, there are many things I don't understand or don't relate to, but last night I got a gleam of what it could be like in, say, ten years time.